There are many people who lead a licentious and dissolute life and they seek the renown, honour, property and wealth of this world. They exhaust their entire life making plans and devising strategies to fulfil such longings and desires. Their yearnings have yet to reach their end when death comes knocking. Now, even people of this nature were given various faculties. If they had made use of these very faculties, they could have attained to the truth. Allah the Exalted was not miserly, but these people failed to employ their own faculties. This is their own misfortune. Fortunate and blessed is the one who employs his faculties.
There are many who, when told to fear God Almighty and to act upon His commandments while abstaining from God’s prohibitions, will respond by saying, ‘Are we out to become saints?’ Such statements constitute disbelief in my view. This is to think ill of God Almighty. Is God Almighty faced with a shortage? After all, these are not limited government jobs which will finish once they are filled. On the contrary, anyone who develops a sincere relationship with God Almighty will benefit from the bounties that were granted to the pious individuals of the past.
بركریماں كارہا دشوار نیست
No task is difficult for the valiant.
Allah the Exalted refers to His beloved as saints. Now is it difficult for someone to become a saint in the sight of God Almighty? It is extremely easy. Of course, it is necessary for a person to stand firm in virtue, and tread on the path of God with patience, determination and loyalty, and to not waver in the face of any grief, pain or misfortune. When an individual develops a true relationship with God Almighty and distances themselves from those things which cause His displeasure, and in fact, adopts purity and piety, abstaining from that which is foul, God Almighty also forges a relationship with such a person and grants them His nearness. However, if someone continues to move away from God Almighty and does not make an effort to pull themselves out of impurity, then God Almighty also does not care for such a person, just as He states:
فَلَمَّا زَاغُوۡۤا اَزَاغَ اللّٰہُ قُلُوۡبَہُمۡ
So when they deviated from the right course, Allah caused their hearts to deviate. (Malfuzat [English], Vol. 2, pp. 65-66)